The ability to view & navigate a project in VR - Oculus / HTC Vive HMD's

[Anonymous]

There is the need to immerse someone into the scan and VR would be an excellent option.  When scans come into our office the rest of the project team needs to get up to speed. Combining the use of VR would enable any team member to " walk " around the newly scanned space. The ability to review the scan in VR seems like a logical progression in the Recap roadmap as we have seen significant increases in productivity utilizing HMD's.

[LyleHardin]

I second this. Especially if we could add the .nwd file to the Virtual tour. Right now we are doing this manually with Unity. But it's quite the process, having to parse down the point cloud so it's usable, export our 3D models to .fbx files, bring all that into Unity and port over to Oculus Rift. It'd be great to have a button "Export to Rift" or similar....

This would be most useful, actually, from Navisworks.

[dgorsman]

As of now VR capabilities require significant simplification of data for practical use.  Direct use of "heavy data" like point clouds and other engineering work may have to wait for a couple of generations of hardware advancement for smooth use.  I think the HMD market needs a couple of years to shake out a standard too, ala BETAMAX vs. VHS or HD-DVD vs. BluRay.  Its easier to implement when there aren't so many moving targets.

And the usual comment about how "any team member" excludes those with glasses. 

[Anonymous]

I already use 3rd party software to navigate point clouds ( Worldviz   / Vizard ) with great success. I don't think the timeline is as far off as you think it is.

The fact that I have to create a stack to do it is the suggestion for Autodesk. 

[dgorsman]

@Anonymous  - "create a stack to do it" means... what?

I had a quick peek at the Worldviz site - looks like point cloud data still to be pre-processed first.  Is this correct?

[Anonymous]

Yes - It only handles a .PTS file but there is freeware that converts E57's to the PTS

It's a stack to get it into worldviz, Recap to E57, Cloud compare to PTS, and then into wordviz, but the ability is there. 

[ramesh_sridharan]

With the latest segmented mesh workflow in ReCap 2026, users should be able to visualize point cloud derivatives in VR/XR workflows.

[LyleHardin]

Whoo Hoo! (at least until I try it out, which I can't wait to do!) Fingers crossed!

[LyleHardin]

Ah... "....point cloud derivatives..."   Not the point cloud itself. Bummer.

No VR capabilities in ReCap itself. Still disappointing. 

[ramesh_sridharan]

@LyleHardin Aside from the additional step of generating a mesh, is there a specific reason you prefer point clouds over meshes for VR workflows? Based on several user feedback, textured meshes were generally preferred due to their lightweight nature, opacity (unlike point clouds), and realistic appearance, while still offering similar benefits such as measurement capabilities.

[LyleHardin]

Simplicity is the main issue. Using FARO's SCENE, we can cruise through a point cloud, 'fly' up to inaccessible areas to look around and take measurements. This has been a great tool for our engineers who can't make it to the project site.

We will also place our Revit models into SCENE (which is quite a pain to do) and give clients a VR walk through of their new equipment in the laser scan environment. Very popular.

I've just loaded ReCap 2026 and have admittingly not tried the scan to mesh feature in 2026. I've used it in the past with previous versions and was not a fan. The mesh was too heavy and the triangles looked terrible in Revit. Hopefully that has improved with this version. I'm still looking forward to trying it out with the Revit / ReCap plug in.

[ramesh_sridharan]

Absolutely, @LyleHardin . Explore the latest mesh generation and editing capabilities to create segmented meshes. You can clean up your mesh for an optimized VR experience. The Revit plugin also helps with augmenting your BIM model. Give it a try and let us know how we can enhance and fine-tune the workflow for a seamless experience.